Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned
internet users of a spam campaign which pretends that the recipient
has won a charitable grant from a global humanitarian organization
set up to create a living memorial to the late Diana, Princess of
Wales.
The messages claim that recipients have been randomly selected
to receive £2,598,000.00. The emails say that to receive the grant
they must make contact with the organization, who will reply with
further instructions. However, the emails, which say they come from
the "Diana Memorial Foundation", are not connected with the genuine
Diana Memorial Fund.
Sophos researchers believe that the emails are a variant of the
commonly-encountered "Letter from Nigeria" scams, also known as 419
Advanced Fee Fraud, that fool innocent users into believing that a
large amount of money will be transferred into their bank account,
but are really designed to steal information about the user's bank
account or demand a "handling fee" for the money transfer.
The scammers are sending out bogus emails
claiming that over £2.5 million has been granted.
"This email scam campaign is abusing the memory of one of the
world's most famous women in its attempt to steal money from the
unwary. Everyone should be suspicious if they are unexpectedly told
they are about to receive a fortune," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Alarm bells should instantly
ring when recipients see that they have to contact the supposedly
legitimate organization via a Yahoo email address, but some may
find the promise of riches makes them blind to the danger."
Interestingly, Sophos experts note that the email refers to the
name of a genuine employee of the real Diana Memorial Fund inside
the message.
"Using the name of a genuine employee of the Diana Memorial Fund
in the email may be an attempt to give the message greater
credibility for anyone who searches for more information on the
web," continued Cluley. "However, the address given in the email is
not that of the real charity whose website can be found at www.theworkcontinues.org."
Sophos reminds users to be wary of unsolicited emails, and has
published information about how individuals can learn how to protect
themselves against this and other online scams.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.